So. Do you know Pema Chodron? I LOVE her. She says so many wise things.

“We think that the point is to pass the test or overcome the problem, but the truth is that things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together again and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.”
― Pema Chödrön

“People get into a heavy-duty sin and guilt trip, feeling that if things are going wrong, that means that they did something bad and they are being punished. That’s not the idea at all. The idea of karma is that you continually get the teachings that you need to open your heart. To the degree that you didn’t understand in the past how to stop protecting your soft spot, how to stop armoring your heart, you’re given this gift of teachings in the form of your life, to give you everything you need to open further.”

“Rather than letting our negativity get the better of us, we could acknowledge that right now we feel like a piece of shit and not be squeamish about taking a good look.”

I could go on, but that sequence seems about right for today. I realized something – discovered something – today that will change the trajectory of my path. I don’t know to what extent, don’t know how soon things will be significantly different, or how long it will last, don’t know how it will end.

I think it’s really obnoxious to be so secretive about what it is, but it’s not mine to share. I’ll say it’s health related, but not anything likely to be fatal anytime soon.

And really, nothing has changed except I’m aware of something now that had been outside my conscious awareness. I might have caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye. And have maybe felt its breath for a moment. But it was already a thing. And now I know about it. The only thing that’s changed is that now I know.

Eleanor Roosevelt is another wise woman. I turn to her often.

“You have to accept whatever comes, and the only important thing is that you meet it with the best you have to give.”

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

“A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.”

So. In the greater scheme of the universe, this is just one more tiny drop in the ocean of life. I haven’t talked to anyone else about this, and it might be a while til I do. That makes me glad to have this space to write. I know if I were on Facebook, this would be vague-booking to the max, and I appreciate that in this space, I can feel my way through this.